Loudness in mastering/mixing - Open discussion

[TritoneAddiction]

Just felt like sharing my current view on the topic, but it would also be interesting to see other peoples views on the matter.

In the past I used to care about getting loud mixes, because I've heard that people perceive louder music as better. And also at the time (as far as I know) no streaming service had any form of automated volume adjusting. But around 2017 I simply stopped caring about loudness, even if my songs came out quiter than others. I thought I'd rather have my music sound good then turn it up to max and crush the sound. I wasn't willing to make that sacrifice. I know professionals know how to get away with louder mixes, but still I don't see the point anymore.
Maybe the "louder sounds better" argument has some truth to it. But in my case everytime I press play on a song and it's LOUD I just find it annoying. As a consequence I always turn loud mixes down, usually to a much lower volume than I would if the song came out at a "normal" volume. That's because of the initial annoyance. So the intended purpose of having it loud has the opposite effect on me. Maybe I'm just getting old.
I still hear both professional mixes and hobbyists having really crushed mixes sometimes, even though the worst of the loudness war era seems to be over.

So for me, the last 6-7 years I've just let the limiter work gently to where I think it sounds good. I even think having a limiter pushing down the peaks slightly can make a mix sound better as long as it fits the song. I don't mix any song differently either just to get more volume out of it.

So how about you guys, do you push your mixes/mastering in order to get it louder? Or are you like me and you've stopped caring about it? I suspect where the music is being played (which platforms/places) might influence peoples choices.

[RobC]

I'll read it after I ate my pizza. But while it cools a bit, here's an interesting observation I had:

While I hate squashed dynamics and overly loud, clipped, ear-fatiguing sound; I also don't fancy macro dynamics at the same time. I hate it when I watch a movie at night, I turn the TV down, because of a louder scene in a city or something; but then, when actors are in a room and speak quietly, I barely can make out what they say. Similarly, when listening to music, maybe classical; or if I remember in school, the national anthem playing, I couldn't stand the main section blasting our ears. The same crap is still pulled for "bass drops" in modern music. I myself was thinking about adding macro dynamics, but realising how unpleasant it can be, I think I'll stick to lovely and lively dynamic music, avoiding crazy volume changes.

[RobC]

What I would do for loudness and ear-safety, is a subtle, but complex dynamics processing. The usual 4, aka up/downwards compression/expansion, and limiting, waveshaping (clipping/soft clipping, foldback distortion, ringmod, etc). Well, maybe not the upwards expansion, since we're talking dynamic range reduction. Multi-band for everything - in this case, rendered linear phase crossovers. As well as stereo, and mid/side processing. Maybe even left/right channel processing (yeah, I know, linked/unlinked processing).

Whatever processing I apply, I'd do until I start hearing any difference. What is inaudible in case of reducing dynamic range, can go. No need for it. It just wastes headroom, drains the speakers and even our ears.

[selig]

Even during the peak of the loudness wars, most of us mixed to sound good, and left it to mastering engineers to figure out the loudness. Now folks mix to sound loud, and try to leave to to mastering to try to make it sound good. Hmmmmm…..

[robussc]

Even during the peak of the loudness wars, most of us mixed to sound good, and left it to mastering engineers to figure out the loudness. Now folks mix to sound loud, and try to leave to to mastering to try to make it sound good. Hmmmmm…..

That's quite a good point!

I'm still on my mixing journey, but I remember the incredible dynamic range of some of the first digital mixes, so while I would like my music to have a modern punch, I still want there to be decent dynamic range. There has to be a happy medium.

[TritoneAddiction]

While I hate squashed dynamics and overly loud, clipped, ear-fatiguing sound; I also don't fancy macro dynamics at the same time. I hate it when I watch a movie at night, I turn the TV down, because of a louder scene in a city or something; but then, when actors are in a room and speak quietly, I barely can make out what they say. Similarly, when listening to music, maybe classical; or if I remember in school, the national anthem playing, I couldn't stand the main section blasting our ears. The same crap is still pulled for "bass drops" in modern music. I myself was thinking about adding macro dynamics, but realising how unpleasant it can be, I think I'll stick to lovely and lively dynamic music, avoiding crazy volume changes.

Yeah I can see that. I agree about the movie thing. It is pretty annoying when you can hardly hear a dialogue only to get back to super loud. I an feel the same kind of annoyance when it comes to very dark scenes. Sometimes it's so dark that you can't understand what's happening in the scene.

[robussc]

I hate it when I watch a movie at night, I turn the TV down, because of a louder scene in a city or something; but then, when actors are in a room and speak quietly, I barely can make out what they say.

Just confirming that the speaker mode is correct. There was some discussion on the web recently about Netflix(?) defaulting to the wrong setup (like basic stereo) so the center channel (i.e. the dialog) is not getting driven.

I’m sure it’s probably fine, but good to double check I’ve definitely had to work with my 5.1 system to ensure it’s getting the best result and now I rarely have that experience.

https://www.techradar.com/streaming/he ... -one-catch

[integerpoet]

Even during the peak of the loudness wars, most of us mixed to sound good, and left it to mastering engineers to figure out the loudness. Now folks mix to sound loud, and try to leave to to mastering to try to make it sound good. Hmmmmm…..

I even saw a YouTube video advising that if you want a loud master you must start with a loud mix.

Basically, every channel, says he, should be saturated and compressed to one degree or another.

I guess the guy would say ABM — Always Be Mastering.